The good thing about a designer being actively involved in the design process is that it shows. I was recently invited to a sneak peek preview of the upcoming lawn collection by WARDHA SALEEM and witness the BTS of the shoot, that was being done by Tapu Javeri. After her last outing of lawn, I was particularly interested in how far Wardha had come in, after making waves into mainstream fashion, and I was so not disappointed.

Lawn is a pretty tricky affair and its tentatively much easier to fall into the ‘pretty’ trap rather easily, so much so that it becomes difficult to distinguish one from another label’s (which happened pretty much with many of them this summer). After Kamiar Rokni, Wardha Saleem is probably the only designer I came across, who successfully translated her design sensibilities of her collections to the much more affordable lawn. The signature design aesthetic showed off brilliantly in her designs which were derived from her works in the past couple of years. Avoiding the trap altogether, Wardha has stuck to her guns and has not compromised on the designs just because mediocrity sells. Wardha Saleem clearly realizes that in the wake of so many brands coming up with lawns and various other derivations, it is important to make one’s mark via their signature and maintain that identity, rather than giving in to the pretty demands. And trust me, people are not complaining.

At the shoot met Shariq from Shariq textiles. Finally can give face to the name. According to Wardha they gave her the complete freedom to design as she wished without any preconcieved fears of costs of production without compromising the quality. Kudos to them for showing that sort of faith in the designer, since these days many of them seem to be just in the business to mint money resulting in what I call ‘phool khile hain gulshan gulshan’ (hehe pun totally intended).

Ranging her designs from kitschy and playful to the ones for who stick with the florals, this is one collection that people better be lapping up or my faith in Pakistani women as fashion concious nation is definitely going to dwindle. Priced at under 3k, the designs are a steal for anyone with good taste and a limited budget. Drawing upon her past collections of Folk Play and Doodle Junctions as well as her block print lines, Wardha’s lawn is a testimony to good design with psychedelic and retro elements coming together overlapped with a sense of just the right amounf of traditionalism with the contemporary twist. The result is that you just not get embroidered necklines and silk trims and panels ( the norm for lawns) but more than that with embroidered motifs as well as a variety of prints within one design.

While you get visual drama in black and white and sharp contrasts in one, you would have the DALI-esque surreal doodles in other, to soothing pastels in others and traditional motifs in another, she covered pretty much quite the range. Now one might feel overwhelmed with the amount of prints, but its all been taken care of since it all comes together in a visually balanced design. BROWNIE POINTS for her to sticking with her playfulness of prints yet realizing that it has to sell therefore makes it mass friendly and striking that balance correctly. She sooo needs to move into menswear its not even funny.

Roping in Sanam Saeed as the face of Wardha Saleem Lawn was a good idea, given the popularity of Zindagi Gulzar hai. Sanam Saeed being a thorough professional, changed in and out without complains. What I also liked about her was that she was fuss free and bore the unbearable heat without complains and posed away in different looks from top knots and up-dos to buns and open hair. While the Fashion Film (below) and style presentation was done by Nubain Ali, Wardha Saleem’s brother, The makeup and styling was done flawlessly by N PRO.

The Lawn will be available in all leading Lawn Stores from the 27th of June including not only Pakistan but also Bangladesh, India, UAE, USA, Canada and Australia. Plus they will be available for online sales as well.

P.S. The BTS of the shoot was much more fun to attend because along with myself, bloggers Maliha Rao and Umair Mirza too attended the meet and we had our moments doing the ‘owais’ poses 😛